Roni Margulies
Roni Margulies was born in Istanbul in 1955. On his mother’s side, the family is Turkish but also Sephardic Jewish, on his father’s side Polish (his grandparents settled in Turkey in 1925). Roni Margulies a Turkish poet in the sense that he grew up in Turkey, writes in Turkish and reveals a great sensitivity for the subtleties of the Turkish language, although his own family background has without a doubt pre-programmed him to regard identity and location as anything but self-evident. He attended an English-language elite school in Istanbul and decided in 1972 to read Economics in London. He has lived in London ever since, although he has spent an increasing amount of time in Istanbul in recent years.
He has written poetry since 1991. He has also translated work by Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin into Turkish. He has been living abroad for more than two decades. In collaboration with Savkar Altinel he has translated several volumes of poetry into Turkish. Collections of his own poetry include Her Rind Bilir (Every Bohemian Dervish Would Know / 1991), Gun Ortasinda (At Midday / 1992), Magrur Olma Padisahim (Be Modest, My Sultan / 1994), Bilirim Niye Yanik Oter Ney (I Know Why the Ney Sounds So Sad / 1996), Elsa (2000) and Saat Farki (Time Difference / 2002).
Margulies’ poetry is characterised by its epic intention. Practically all his poems are poetic translations of historical events (he is clearly fascinated by the past) and experiences. They always tell a story about some great theme, such as oppression, migration, alienation or death, but do so via the individual observation of small-scale events. Margulies is an excellent, almost photographic, observer. His use of language is clear and simple, but at the same time highly meticulous. Seven collections of his poetry have been published to date.
Margulies has also been politically involved for many years now, as a member of the Socialist Workers Party of Great Britain. In this, he is just as much driven by his nostalgic preference for the champions of utopian visions as by ideological conviction. He has written many journalistic articles and essays on the struggle against capitalism, both in English and in Turkish, in which he criticises with considerable critical acumen the hegemony of free-market ideology.
Some of his poems
LEGACY
The spear thrust in front of the pavilion
announced that the Khan was seriously ill.
First, and most importantly, among his four sons
he divided his far-flung territories,
the continent he had conquered in twenty years.
Some of his poems
LEGACY
The spear thrust in front of the pavilion
announced that the Khan was seriously ill.
First, and most importantly, among his four sons
he divided his far-flung territories,
the continent he had conquered in twenty years.
Then he called his sons to his bedside.
He gave them a single arrow. Break it, he said.
It was easily broken. Next, he gave them five arrows each.
Break them, he said. They couldn’t be broken. So you’ll
stick together, he said. He who’s on his own will be broken.
He dismissed his sons; his last task too was finished.
The great Khan turned over slowly in his bed,
brought before his eyes the world he had built,
the Caspian at one end, the Great Wall of China at the other.
I can die at last, he said. My forefathers await me
my grandsons will dress up in golden robes,
ride horses swifter than the wind
embrace the prettiest of women.
And, alas, they will forget
in whose debt they are for all that,
I haven’t the slightest doubt.
S/S CANBERRA
The Canberra was to be put in a dry dock
to be dismantled and sold off piece by piece.
Just a few lines in the papers.
They caught my eye early one morning.
The Canberra, a seasoned ship of the world
set off on her maiden voyage thirty-five years ago
to Australia, bearing with her British emigrants
who dreamed of a new life in a new land.
Years later, she carried troops to the Falklands war,
and wounded there, only just escaped sinking.
Her long holiday tours in the Mediterranean
must have been her life’s most restful time.
She could never have guessed she’d enter my life.
He gave them a single arrow. Break it, he said.
It was easily broken. Next, he gave them five arrows each.
Break them, he said. They couldn’t be broken. So you’ll
stick together, he said. He who’s on his own will be broken.
He dismissed his sons; his last task too was finished.
The great Khan turned over slowly in his bed,
brought before his eyes the world he had built,
the Caspian at one end, the Great Wall of China at the other.
I can die at last, he said. My forefathers await me
my grandsons will dress up in golden robes,
ride horses swifter than the wind
embrace the prettiest of women.
And, alas, they will forget
in whose debt they are for all that,
I haven’t the slightest doubt.
S/S CANBERRA
The Canberra was to be put in a dry dock
to be dismantled and sold off piece by piece.
Just a few lines in the papers.
They caught my eye early one morning.
The Canberra, a seasoned ship of the world
set off on her maiden voyage thirty-five years ago
to Australia, bearing with her British emigrants
who dreamed of a new life in a new land.
Years later, she carried troops to the Falklands war,
and wounded there, only just escaped sinking.
Her long holiday tours in the Mediterranean
must have been her life’s most restful time.
She could never have guessed she’d enter my life.
Those years she took students on summer holidays,
in the mid-sixties, they’d stopped in Istanbul,
and the kids came to visit to our school.
in the mid-sixties, they’d stopped in Istanbul,
and the kids came to visit to our school.
I don’t remember why anymore
but even then England was my dream.
For months, the gigantic ship stayed in my mind.
As the Canberra now stands rusting somewhere,
I wonder if the question ever arises to those people
she took to Australia, as it does to me:
“Would things have turned out better elsewhere?”
SINGULAR
In English it’s easy, just add an s
In Turkish too, ler or lar will do
But in Greek plural suffixes
always leave you in a fixThere’s seaport, for instance, limani
and more than one, limania,
while gramma means only one letter,
multiplied, they become grammata
Inexplicably different
the feminine from the masculine
so only one thing’s clear to me now:
I’ve had it with all suffixes.
But now and then, for no reason,
I find myself on my own repeating,
the most singular word I know:
Elsa, Elsa, Elsa.
THE SLIPPER
One day a few months ago
an old woman appeared
at the entrance of the underground station.
She was begging.
Her clothes were torn but white as white.
She reminded me of my grandmother:
her eyes full of fear,
her last days.
Each time I passed by her
I made a habit of saying ‘Good morning,’
and giving her some bread or money.
She never said a word.
The other day I tried to say more,
she looked, but obviously didn’t understand.
She took what I gave her,
turned her head the other way.
When I passed by yesterday,
she wasn’t at her usual place,
on the ground I saw a single slipper
in faded pink, sequined, on its left side
a blood-red plastic heart.
Tiny and glittering.
As if it would, at any moment
start beating.
TRAVOLATORS
My first plane ride, how can I forget it.
We showed our tickets and exited the gate,
my grandad on one side, my mum on the other,
a blue bus came along, then left us
right beneath the wing. I was eleven.
Our destination was fixed, as was our return:
we were off to spend a week in İzmir.
The second time, six years later, I remember too,
heading away to university, ticket in hand,
out there a new world awaiting me.
Now to get to the plane from the waiting lounge
you had to pass through travolators.
As if playing hop scotch I skipped along.
When I looked out of the window
I saw behind me rows of travolators
each like a huge finger that was
pointing out something, it seemed.
What were they trying to say?
What was it I was expected to see?
I still wonder about that sometimes.
but even then England was my dream.
For months, the gigantic ship stayed in my mind.
As the Canberra now stands rusting somewhere,
I wonder if the question ever arises to those people
she took to Australia, as it does to me:
“Would things have turned out better elsewhere?”
SINGULAR
In English it’s easy, just add an s
In Turkish too, ler or lar will do
But in Greek plural suffixes
always leave you in a fixThere’s seaport, for instance, limani
and more than one, limania,
while gramma means only one letter,
multiplied, they become grammata
Inexplicably different
the feminine from the masculine
so only one thing’s clear to me now:
I’ve had it with all suffixes.
But now and then, for no reason,
I find myself on my own repeating,
the most singular word I know:
Elsa, Elsa, Elsa.
THE SLIPPER
One day a few months ago
an old woman appeared
at the entrance of the underground station.
She was begging.
Her clothes were torn but white as white.
She reminded me of my grandmother:
her eyes full of fear,
her last days.
Each time I passed by her
I made a habit of saying ‘Good morning,’
and giving her some bread or money.
She never said a word.
The other day I tried to say more,
she looked, but obviously didn’t understand.
She took what I gave her,
turned her head the other way.
When I passed by yesterday,
she wasn’t at her usual place,
on the ground I saw a single slipper
in faded pink, sequined, on its left side
a blood-red plastic heart.
Tiny and glittering.
As if it would, at any moment
start beating.
TRAVOLATORS
My first plane ride, how can I forget it.
We showed our tickets and exited the gate,
my grandad on one side, my mum on the other,
a blue bus came along, then left us
right beneath the wing. I was eleven.
Our destination was fixed, as was our return:
we were off to spend a week in İzmir.
The second time, six years later, I remember too,
heading away to university, ticket in hand,
out there a new world awaiting me.
Now to get to the plane from the waiting lounge
you had to pass through travolators.
As if playing hop scotch I skipped along.
When I looked out of the window
I saw behind me rows of travolators
each like a huge finger that was
pointing out something, it seemed.
What were they trying to say?
What was it I was expected to see?
I still wonder about that sometimes.
No comments:
Post a Comment